Go Easy
by Tormentas
Summary: The first time he touched her, it was to take a gun from her hands.
1. Chapter 1

I do t own daredevil or marvel. I wish.

this story may or may not get a continuation. Just an idea I had.

enjoy!

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The first time Frank touches her, it's to take a gun out of her hands. There's blood on her face and a man is writhing on the ground in front of her, a hole in his neck. Her entire body is shaking, and nausea is roiling around her stomach. He comes up behind her, quiet as a ghost, and slides the pistol from her grip. She only really notices his presence when the gun is out of her hands, when she lunges for it, colliding with a wall of solid muscle and black denim.

"Whoa, go easy. Go easy." Frank's voice isn't gentle. "Go easy."

She doesn't know what she says, but she claws and spits at him like a banshee, tearing at his shirt and raking bloody lines across his face. He doesn't stop her, doesn't make a sound, until she gives up and starts sobbing uncontrollably.

"Why'd you kill him?"

It sounds so horrible when he says it, totally without judgment, accepting that her reason _justified_ the still wriggling almost corpse on the ground. The man gurgles, and Frank looks down.

"That's Lenny Merkowitz."

She can't speak, so she tries nodding.

"Why'd you kill him?" He lifts her face to look at him. The world's dumbest thought; _I must look hideous_ , flashes across her mind.

"He...he…."

"He got off." She can hear the understanding in his voice. Lenny had walked on a rape charge. Not enough evidence. He'd put the girl through a garbage press after killing her. The DNA evidence was contaminated, so he'd walked. She'd followed him from the courtroom. Frank understands why. But there's pain in Frank's voice, a pain that makes her chest hurt. She vomits over his boots. He steps back, but doesn't say anything. He stands next to her as she's violently sick, hand against her back. On the ground, Lenny wheezes.

"Is your car nearby?" Frank asks. She shakes her head. It's still back at the courthouse.

Frank grunts. "There's a blue van at the end of the alley. Twenty meters. Go to it, get in from the passenger door and climb in the back. I'll follow you." She doesn't move. She can't.

"Hey, you need to go." He shakes her gently. She feels like her feet are rooted to the concrete.

"Move!" His voice is suddenly and terrifyingly loud. She runs. The van is there just like he said. She fumbles with the door, and clambers in. There's a pause, during which she sits quietly in the dark, then a thunderous explosion of sound. The gunshots make her curl up and scream into her arm. There's a gentle whining noise, and something soft and wet brushes against her arm. A grey pitbull nuzzles at her. _Frank has a dog?_. The driver side door opens and Frank climbs in. He starts the engine and pulls away from the curb, sirens following them into the night.

"I'm gonna take you somewhere safe, get you cleaned up. Okay?" When she doesn't respond, he shakes her shoulder roughly. "Okay?"

"Okay." Her voice sounds strange, like she's swallowed gravel. The pitbull licks her face.

"Down George."

George whimpers in unconvincing misery. He licks Karen again.

"Sorry bout the dog." Frank grumbles. "Little shit doesn't listen."

"It's okay." Karen says. "I don't mind." George barks and rests his chin on her knee.

"You let him do that, he won't leave you alone." Frank growls. "He's a whore like that." He turns on the radio. Jessie's Girl fills the van. As they drive, Frank begins to sing along quietly. George barks.

Karen can't help it, so she begins to laugh. It's high pitched, and half hysterical, but it's better than crying, and Frank _fucking_ Castle and his pitbull singing along to classic rock is just so ordinary it's ridiculous. Frank doesn't say anything, but he doesn't turn the music off either, and he doesn't stop singing.

They pull into a seedy car lot somewhere on the other side of town. Karen lets Frank steer her wordlessly across the lot, into a rundown apartment building, and up several flights of stairs. His apartment, loft really, is much bigger and much brighter than she expected. She'd imagined Frank brooding alone in the dark every night, but the space is comfortable in a very utilitarian sort of way. It's covered in ammunition and weapon parts, and the walls are a patchwork of photographs and red strings. A bench press and stacks of weights sit in a corner.

"There's a shower in that room." He points to a dark blue door. "Turn the hot water on and stay in there until you're thinking clearly." He hands her a towel, and then leaves her in the middle of the room to go feed George.

Feeling very alone, she walks slowly to the shower. The water is shocking at first, but the heat sears away the disorientation and her nausea begins to dissipate. She fumbles with the soap for a minute, trying to manage a normal shower routine, but gives up and settles for scrubbing the blood from her face so hard it hurts. She lets the water run, and stares at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looks tired, older, like she's aged ten years in a single day. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her face is puffy from crying. She still tastes bile in her mouth, so she tries brushing her teeth with Frank's tooth brush. It feels strange, using Frank's things, _knowing_ he won't mind her doing it. When she's dry, she wraps herself in the towel (her clothes are covered in blood) and stands in front of the bathroom door. She doesn't want to go back out, to have to see Frank, see anyone. She feels afraid. But she can't stay in the bathroom, so she pokes her head out. Frank is seated on a ratty green sofa, a pistol on the table in front of him. George is gnawing at a bone by his feet.

"Frank?" He looks up. "Do...do you have some clothes I could borrow?" He points to a stool next to the sofa. A pair of sweat pants and a t shirt are neatly folded on top of it. She has to fold the sweat pants several times so that they'll stay up. The t shirt is a dull green. A lightning bolt pierced by a sword adorns the left breast.

"Thanks Frank." She sits down on the sofa next to him. George rises quickly, and licks her toes. She slides her feet away, and George whines.

"Leave her be George." George returns to his bone.

They sit quietly for a long time, him cleaning her pistol, and she watching him.

Eventually, unable to bear the quiet, she speaks.

"I thought you left the city."

He grunts, but doesn't answer.

"How'd you know where to find me?"

Frank looks at her. "Merkowitz." His voice is softer than she's used to. "I saw you follow him."

"Did you know I was going to shoot him?"

Frank nods. "It was on your face." He looks pained.

"You didn't stop me." She didn't mean it to sound like an accusation. Maybe she does, she isn't sure _. "You let me be a murderer Frank."_

"I didn't." Frank agrees. _I did, and now you understand._ There's no guilt in his voice, but there is that same pain she heard in the alley. _Why did you choose to be like me?_

"Why?"

He doesn't answer. "Do you have a phone?" She blinks. "What?"

"Have you got a phone?"

She shakes her head.

"Phone number then, someone you need to call so they know where you are?" She stares, uncomprehending.

"If someone files a missing persons, the cops'll come looking, and that won't be good. Who do you need to call so that doesn't happen?"

Her first thought is Matt. She banishes it. He didn't care before.

"Foggy."

"The fat one?" Frank grunts. He hands her a beat up Nokia. "Call him. Don't tell him where you are."

"Can I say I'm with you?"

"Will it help?" Frank asks. He half smiles. "Might scare him."

 _Might scare Matt_. She thinks. She dials.

The phone rings four times before Foggy picks up.

" _Karen? It's two in the morning!"_

"Foggy, I need you to listen to me."

" _Huh? What's going…"_

"Just listen." Her voice catches. "I've done something bad."

" _Karen,_ "

"Just listen!" She hisses. "I got in trouble with someone, but I'm okay now. I'm in a safe place. I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to be at work tomorrow, but not to come looking."

" _Karen, tell me what's…."_

She squeaks as the phone is plucked from her hand. She can only imagine Foggy jerking upright in bed when he hears Frank's growl.

"She was attacked, the man is dead. She's with me. She'll be safe." She can hear Foggy shouting into the phone as Frank hangs up. "Talks tough for a man his size." Frank chuckles. "Said he'd castrate me."

She can't not giggle. "He's protective."

"He'd better be." His expression twists briefly, and Karen isn't sure he meant to say that out loud. On the floor, George yawns loudly.

She feels very tired, and curls up on her side of the couch.

"There's a bed if you're tired." Frank nods towards a large bed against a far wall. "I'll take the couch."

She murmurs good night and is asleep as soon as her head touches the pillow.

She wakes up screaming several times that night, each time to find Frank next to her, a hand on her shoulder, an unreadable expression on his face. _"Go easy." He says every time she wakes up begging Matt, God, someone, HIM, to forgive her, screaming she's sorry. "Go easy, I got you."_ When she wakes the next morning, he's asleep seated next to the bed, his right hand gripped by both of hers.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2! Enjoy! Reviews rock

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There's a sort of tranquility to Frank Castle when he's asleep, a tranquility she is unwilling to disturb. The scowl that seems perennially glued to his face has disappeared, and the ugly bruises that mark his face don't seem nearly as brutal in the dim light of his apartment. His hand, still extended, twitches slightly as he sleeps. Her hands feel small and terribly fragile around his granite like palm. She brushes her thumb idly over his, over a scar that stretches down the length of the finger. She wonders how he got it. _Who'd he kill?_

In the corner, George growls to himself. The dog is just another part of Frank she doesn't understand. For a man whose life revolves around violence, dog walking simply doesn't fit. Then again, neither does helping a distraught former legal assistant get away with murder. A police siren sounds outside in the distance, and for a horrible, ridiculous second she thinks it's for her. She sits bolt upright, her heart in her neck. When the siren fades and she sinks back down onto the bed, Frank is awake, and staring at her. She considers pretending nothing happened, but he's probably been awake since the minute she woke up, and simply hasn't moved. He blinks, and she isn't sure what to say.

"Morning." There are bags under his eyes, and she realizes he probably hasn't slept more than an hour.

"I'm sorry for waking you."

"S'alright." He replies. "Not your fault." He rises slowly, and pads away from the bed to make coffee. George following at his heels. He doesn't speak as he looms over a stove, but she can smell cooking eggs and sausages, and occasionally a piece of meat will drop from his hand to a ravenous George.

"You eat eggs right?" He asks, and the question is so normal, so domestic. Something wells up inside her and she lets out a noise that is halfway between a laugh and a sob. He looks at her.

"Sorry," she says. "I just...I couldn't have imagined you like this."

"Like what?" Frank asks over his shoulder. He's got that crooked half smile he had when he told her about his children in hospital , when he'd teased her in the little diner just three weeks ago. The smile makes her stomach lurch.

"Just...like _this_." She waves a hand. "Cooking, having a dog." She swings her legs off the bed, and sits there, staring at his back.

"I can't have a dog?" Frank looks down at George, who whines. "Sorry bud." She can't help smiling.

"Why did you tell Foggy I was attacked last night?" _Why did you lie for me?_ She doesn't know where the question comes from. It's clear he hadn't expected it, at least not yet, because his head jerks upright in surprise.

Frank is quiet for a long moment. When he turns to face her, it's with a plate of food. "Eat." She takes the plate at they eat in silence, him on the floor, her on his bed. He's a surprisingly good cook, even if his coffee is so strong it could remove paint.

When they've both finished, he takes the plates to a small metal sink. He doesn't say a word the entire time, and Karen thinks he's trying to dodge the question. She needs an answer, but more than that, she needs sound. The silence is almost maddening.

"When do you think it'll be safe to leave?" She asks.

He shuts off the water and turns to face her, leaning against the sink. "Don't know. Friend of mine is looking into it." _He had friends?_ She wonders.

"Who?"

He doesn't answer. He lays his massive frame lengthwise across the green couch, and closes his eyes. From this angle, Karen can see the network of scars, lines, bruises, and numberless gaunt signs of exhaustion that riddle his face. He has a face like a Roman bust, all stern power and grim fact. It's the face of a man fighting the world. It's the face of a man who is losing.

"Did I keep you up last night?" Her voice sounds small in the quiet of the apartment.

He makes a rumbling sound in the back of his throat. "You had a bad night."

She smiles wanly. "I woke up a couple times."

"You did." He agrees. More than a couple. Twelve times in five hours.

"You were there every time." She looks at him intently. He opens his eyes for a moment to look at her, and closes them again.

"You were hurting."

"Was it like that for you?"

"What, killing?" The way he says it makes her shiver. He's been so normal that the dispassionate tone in his voice shocks her.

"Yeah."

"No." He doesn't offer to elaborate, and she doesn't think she'd want him to. They sit in silence for a few more minutes. Karen watches George chew idly on one of Frank's boots. Then Frank speaks, and the pain she heard last night is back in his voice.

"I should've killed Merkowitz when he left the courthouse." That it would have spared her goes unsaid, but she can hear it in his voice.

"It's not your job to protect me." She feels angry. _I don't want to be protected._

He looks at her. His expression is unreadable.

"I'm not a fucking child Frank!" She says. "I don't need you or Matt, or anyone, following me. I can take care of myself. I don't need a fucking rescuer every time I scrape my goddamn knee." She realizes she's shouting, shouting at _the Punisher_ , but she doesn't care. "I don't fucking need you Frank."

He doesn't look away as she shouts at him. She can see the long scratches she'd clawed into his face last night, like angry little lines across a sheet of paper. He looks crushed, beaten down, like he's finally reached the end of his impossibly long tether. Suddenly she can't bear to shout at this shadow of a man, so she stops. She wishes she hadn't, because now she wants to cry.

"Sorry."

He laughs. "Nah, don't be." He sits up to drink from his coffee cup. "You told me you were done."

 _I'm done Frank, you're dead to me._

"Yeah." She stares down at the bare wood floor of his apartment. His shirt feels soft against her skin. "No, I said that."

He looks at her quizzically.

"I don't...I didn't mean it when I said it. I think. I don't know."

He places the coffee cup on the floor. It clicks loudly.

"Last night wasn't your first time was it?"

"What?"

"Last night...Lenny. He wasn't the first." He stares at her, and she can tell he already knows the answer. She watches as Frank puts the pieces of her .380 back together. She wonders idly if he's remembering the words he said to her when she saw him in hospital. You were never in any danger. He loads ten little rounds into the magazine from a yellow ammo box. She thinks she might be in considerable danger now. The thought is terrifying, but she doesn't seem to have the energy to move. "Who was the first?" He asks. His voice is gentle.

"James Wesley. He worked for Wilson Fisk." She replies. "He…." She finds she's having trouble speaking. Wesley gurgling quietly as he stares at her passes through her mind. She feels sick.

"Expected it to be easier the second time?" He doesn't sound gentle anymore. He sounds resigned, grim, icy cold.

"I…" He rises from the couch, and now she moves, scrambling across the bed towards the bathroom. The gun is still on the couch, but it doesn't really matter. Frank could crush the life out of her if he felt like it. She catches herself on the door frame and falls, banging off the hard tile floor. The door is wide open, and Frank looms over her like a golem.

"I was angry." She manages. Her voice cracks, and her eyes water. "I wanted…."

He kneels in front of her, arms at his sides, his hands open. "I know." He doesn't touch her, but he edges forwards on his knees, arms still at his sides, hands open. "I know."

She tries to back away further, but she's against the wall, and he's getting closer and oh god, he's reached for her….

His hand brushes her ankle gently.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He says. "It's okay." His hand rises up her leg, and he slides closer. "You're okay."

She reaches for him, inelegantly she'll admit later. She means to brush his cheek, but it becomes more of a gentle thumping against the side of his face. He laughs, and the sound is warm and not at all like Frank's usual voice, and it makes her smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She replies. He laughs again, and she's surprised at how wonderful it sounds.


	3. Chapter 3

Frank drives her back to her apartment just after the sun begins to set. He's sent someone, and she has no idea who, to collect her car from the courthouse. When she offers her car keys, he smiles and shakes his head. _The car will be in her parking space before she has to go to work tomorrow, he says._

They walk together up the creaking steps to her little apartment. There are still bullet holes in the wall. There's a roil of fear in her gut that stops her at the door. Frank grunts, and presses his hand into the small of her back, gently guiding her inside. She can't stop staring at the bullet ridden wall.

"Got a blanket?"

"What?"

"A blanket, a sheet, something colorful." He rumbles. "Y'know, one of those hippy kaleidoscope sheets girls hang on their walls."

She stares at him, and then bursts out laughing. He stands there, nonplussed.

"A hippy kaleidoscope sheet?"

"That's what they are aren't they?" He sounds defensive, his voice even more gruff. "So do you have one?" There's a tint of red about his ears that she thinks she's imagining.

"Yes I have one." She digs it out of a drawer in her bedroom for him, and watches as he drapes it over the perforated drywall.

She can't resist a dig at him when he turns back to her. "Do you charge for your decorating?"

"Nah." He rubs his nose. He gives her another half smile, and the dread in her stomach does a little cartwheel and turns up warm and fluttery. He shifts in place.

"The .380." He says suddenly, "that was the only piece you've got right?"

The fluttery feeling fades. She nods. He's gotten closer, close enough that she can feel his breath on her cheek.

He takes her hand, and pressed a sleek little pistol into her palm. He turns her away from him so that the pistol is pointed at the door, his arms wrapped around hers. She swallows. The fluttery feeling surges up into her chest.

"This is a glock twenty six." He murmurs. "Simple as simple gets. Slide in the magazine," Hands over her own, he drops the magazine out of the pistol, and slides it back in. "Thumb the safety," there's an audible click. "And you're ready to fire."

His chin rests on her shoulder, and she doesn't notice how she leans into him.

"You got it?"

Words have become difficult, so she nods.

"Good." He turns her around, and grips her shoulders. His grip is not gentle. "It's not shiny like the .380, so you won't be waving someone off with it. You need to draw it, you plug the sonofabitch. You put two rounds in his chest. You understand me?"

She nods again.

"Say it." He growls. "Some one comes down on you, what do you do?"

She looks up at him, and it isn't Frank who looks back. It's the Punisher, all dark shadows and extraordinary fury. A black beast in a dark coat.

"Put two in his chest." Her voice is small, but a sort of energy rises inside her. It's only when he releases her that she realizes the feeling is confidence.

The black beast recedes, Frank returns. He hands her a yellow box, and a post it note.

"Ammunition and a cell number." He lets go of her hands, but he remains so close that she can still touch him.

"The police won't come calling. Lenny's body'll turn up on the other side of town." He says. "But if anyone does come around asking questions, anyone at all, you call me."

Right, the police. She swallows hard. "Why did you help me?" She wants to understand, to have an answer. She wants to know why he cares.

Frank seems to be contemplating her, his eyes doing that horrible thing they could do, drilling a hole into her skull. He doesn't answer, but his expression tells her what she wants to know.

"Call your friend, the fat one."

"Foggy." She corrects him with a smile. She gets a cocked eyebrow and a twitch of his lips in return. She'll take it.

"Tell him you're safe." He turns away, and she has to keep her arm from reaching for him. "I'll check in with you in a few days."

She watches from her doorway as he trudges down the hall towards the stairs. Only when he disappears from view does she close her door and pick up her phone.

Foggy takes her out for lunch and a speech. They go to a Vietnamese place he's found since he left Nelson and Murdock, a place far above her price range. When she mentions the bill he laughs and says he has a tab. He sounds better, less self conscious, less like the Foggy she knew. In all fairness, she hasn't seen him or Matt in a month, so it really isn't her place to comment. He wants every detail of the last twenty four hours, why she was attacked, why Frank was there, why she went with him, what happened, how did it happen, has she considered going to the police, she should really go to the police, he'll go with her if she's nervous, he can call Matt if she's scared of the Punisher….

She puts her fork down harder than she means to. Foggy stares at her, and the nervousness he'd lost when he left Matt scrambles back into his face and the sudden hunch of his shoulders.

"Leave it alone Foggy." She says. Her voice is sharp, unnecessarily so, and there's a pang of guilt when Foggy crumbles.

"I'm sorry, I just…."

"I know Foggy," She tries to smile, reaching across the table to pat his hand. "and thank you. But I'm really alright"

He sighs. He's lost some weight since she last saw him, his chin doesn't tremble when he breathes anymore. "Can you at least tell me who attacked you?" He takes a sip of the really too expensive wine that came with lunch.

She pauses. "You remember Lenny Merkowitz?" Of course he does. The only time she'd spoken to Foggy over the last four weeks was after she'd published an article about Lenny. Lenny's public defender had told Foggy Lenny had been making threats.

"Oh god Karen!" He coughs, and wine spatters the table cloth. "Lenny!?" He looks quite pale. "Did he hurt you? Is he still out there?"

Karen feels something nasty in her throat. _Are you alright Karen? Don't worry Karen, I'll take care of it. Be safe Karen._ The urge to retort, to snap at Foggy that she doesn't need his protection is too much to ignore.

"Frank took his head off, so I doubt he'll bother me again." _I put a bullet in his neck Foggy. I put a bullet in his neck and watched him drown in his own blood._ She wonders what he'd say if she told him the truth. He already looks a little nauseous. _Maybe he'd vomit._

But Foggy looks genuinely miserable, and the vitriol turns to shame inside her. He looks so small, in his new suit and in this fancy restaurant, so out of place without his constant companion. Matt's departure must have hurt Foggy more than it hurt her. Matt had made her feel, if not love, at least that she was special, that she was wanted. But Foggy had depended on Matt for everything. Matt had been Foggy's source of confidence, his foundation. Now that Matt was gone, Foggy was floating. Like she was.

"I'm sorry." She mumbles. He shoots her a weak smile. "It's okay."

He laughs, and there's only a tiny bit of humor in it. "I should have guessed."

After lunch she lets him walk her back to her apartment. He leaves her at the step after extracting a promise that they'll get lunch later that week. Maybe he'll bring Matt along, he says, and his expression is so hopeful that she can't say no. He leaves with a bounce in his step, and she smiles.

When she goes to bed that night, the pistol Frank gave her is under her pillow.


End file.
